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Business/SolutionsBusiness Overview
Over the past few years, the deployment of IT solutions accross multiple locations have accelerated, with businesses increasingly relying on network infrastructure to conduct business. At the same time, budget pressures demand more rational use of resources. The industry motto is "doing more with less". An effective out-of-band management solution enables remote "lights out" infrastructure management and logical consolidation of data centers, eliminating the need for support personel deployed 24x7 at all locations and dramatically reducing management costs. Out-of-band management acts on infrastructure failures, which include operating system, hardware, power, and network failures, direct cause of 20% of all unplanned downtime according to Gartner. It maximizes the availability of IT systems, bringing significant gains in service levels. Technology
Out-of-band network technologies include console management, KVM access and remote power control. In-band management tools based on SNMP (such as OpenView, Unicenter or Tivoli) depend on the network to monitor and manage IT resources. If an infrastructure failure (such as an OS lockup or a router failure) causes a set of devices to lose network connectivity, those tools cannot communicate with the end devices and they lose their effectiveness. When this happens, you need out-of-band tools to get access to the management ports of servers, network equipment and automation devices to be able to diagnose the problem and restore connectivity without the need of dispatching a technician to the site. Out-of-band solutions are evolving to provide not only access and monitoring, but to also automate the management of the data center and seamlessly integrate with NMS tools. Business Analysis/ROI
Out-of-band technology enables IT professionals and subject matter experts to gain access to problematic devices quickly and efficiently- even when the IT infrastructure itself is at fault. According to Gartner's 2002 study, nearly 20% of all downtime can be attributed to hardware-related factors that can only be corrected using some form of out-of-band technology. Hence, out-of-band management is a complement to the more traditional in-band tools such as HP OpenView or IBM Tivoli. Using out-of-band technology, many costs associated with logistics and distance can be reduced through the remote access and ongoing monitoring of key devices. The overall cost to run your business can be managed more efficiently. Reductions in IT staffing or the addition of new capacities using the same level of staffing can be realized. Finally, the quality and effectiveness of the IT staff can be increased as they focus and become subject matter experts. These highly skilled subject matter experts can then apply their knowledge worldwide instantaneously, solving problems and bringing critical resources back online quickly. The deployment of out-of-band technology is one of the most effective ways to manage IT costs while keeping consistant and acceptable levels of service. Investments in out-of-band technology simply allows you to do more work with less cost.
Solutions and Application Cases
In order to meet the demands of modern enterprise data center management, a single solution is not enough. A combination of Cyclades in-band and out-of-band technology is required to manage the data center at both the application level and at the hardware component level. Cyclades solutions for complete out-of-band management can be effectively utilized to complement your existing in-band technology to provide complete coverage of your data center and branch office management needs. To learn more on how Cyclades' Solutions can manage your infrastructure, please click here to see our Solutions and Application Profiles. |
